Curious about Atripla

Jun 24, 2008

I am a 31 y/o latin male diagnosticated with HIV 7 months ago. I am been + for 3-5 years more or less and I started my firts treatment 7 months ago with reyataz, trubada en norvir. This combination worked woog cause my virus loar were down fast ( started with 40,000 and after 6 months 70 vl).

But my CD4 didnt grew up a los, I have nos 450 but the % is just 15%. My doctor say that maybe I need to change mu tratment and now I am going to start tonight Atripla.

I am consern about the lipo.... or the lost of facial muscular mass. Atripla can cause it?

Response from Dr. Pierone

It seems like a questionable proposition to change an antiretroviral regimen because of a perceived delay in CD4+ lymphocyte count recovery. Patience is a virtue in this situation because the pace of immune recovery varies quite a bit. Moreover, there is no data that suggest Atripla will lead to a more robust CD4+ lymphocyte count increase as compared with the regimen you are on.

That said, Atripla is arguably the best starting cocktail for HIV infection and should work fine. The risk of developing lipoatrophy with Atripla is roughly the same as your current regimen.

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